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IPrA 2000
7th International Pragmatics Conference
BUDAPEST
Hungary
July 9-14, 2000
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CALL FOR PAPERS
We invite contributions on our panel
Rethinking Sequentiality:
conversational interaction meets mental representation
Sequentiality is central to any theory of pragmatics, discourse,
conversation and context. It is manifest in the recontextualized
conversation-analytic principle of adjacency, i.e. adjacency pair,
adjacency position, adjacency relation, and turn-taking, as well as in
the Gricean notion of dovetailed, i.e. communicative contributions are
linked by one or more common goals manifest in prior and succeeding
talk (Grice 1975, 48). However, this local sequentiality may be
`globalized' and adapted to social settings and thus to larger
units of investigation, such as genre and its classification in
opening, closing and topical-organization sections. The resulting
interrelatedness holds for both local and global coherence (De
Beaugrande & Dressler 1981; Gernsbacher & Giv�n 1995; Halliday &
Hasan 1976; Tannen 1993), which may be interpreted from an
interactional-organization viewpoint with regard to sequential
phenomena as well as from micro- and macro-semantic perspectives with
regard to discourse topic, sub-topics, and cataphoric and anaphoric
references.
The focus on interaction between speakers, text and context inherent
to all above approaches to sequentiality has its counterpart in
descriptions and models of the respective mental structures and
processes within the individual speaker`s mind. While some
approaches to cognitive speech production completely reject the view
that context determines selection of words (Marslen-Wilson & Tyler
1980), others restrict the influence of situation knowledge to the
level of pre-conceptualization, denying it any further influence in
later phases of speech production (e.g. Levelt 1989). However, frame,
script and schemata theories suggest that a large amount of preferred
sequences are mentally stored to constrain inferences and thus reduce
cognitive effort (cf. Abelson 1976; Langer 1989). Yet interactively
oriented models of discourse understanding, such as the
`construction-integration model' developed by Kintsch (1988)
accommodate both permanently existing and on-line context-generated
structures. The aim of this panel is to encourage interdisciplinary
discussion on the phenomenon of sequentiality / adjacency to further
our understanding of the complex processes involved in producing and
understanding conversational sequences. We invite contributions from
among discourse and conversation analysis, ethnography of speaking,
Gricean theory, psycholinguistics and research into the mental
lexicon. Presentations shall cover theoretical approches, analyses of
converational data and experimental studies.
If you're interested, please get in touch with us as soon as possible (not
later than 25th October 1999)
Anita Fetzer Christiane Meierkord
Universit�t Stuttgart P�dagogische Hochschule Erfurt
Institut f�r Linguistik: Anglistik Institut f�r Anglistik und Amerikanistik
Keplerstr. 17 Nordh�user Str. 63
D-70174 Stuttgart, Germany 99089 Erfurt, Germany
Tel: ++49-711-121-3115/3120 Tel.: ++49 - 361 - 7371523
Fax: ++49-711-121-3122 Fax: ++49 - 361 - 7371914
e-mail: anitaifla.uni-stuttgart.de e-mail: meierkoruni-duesseldorf.de

ATALA Workshop
Representation and Treatment of Syntactic Ambiguity in
Natural Language Processing
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Paris, Piti�-Salp�tri�re
January 29, 2000
http://atoll.inria.fr/~clerger/ATALA2000.html
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CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS
There are several approaches making it possible to treat syntactic ambiguity:
one can for example decide to apply disambiguation as soon as possible, in
particular using statistical methods. One can on the contrary choose to delay
to the maximum the disambiguation and to maintain the ambiguity, possibly
until the end of the processing. These two approaches are not necessarily
contradictory. However, the problem remains very difficult to solve and many
of the methods proposed amount to little more than the traditional
enumeration.
Factorizing the information (for example in using parse forests) can from
this point of view play a very significant role and even lead to effective
solutions.
The goal of this workshop is to propose an overview of the current techniques
for the representation and the treatment of syntactic ambiguity in natural
language processing.
INVITED SPEAKERS
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. Bernard Lang
INRIA
. David Weir
Cognitive and Computing Science
University of Sussex
COMMUNICATIONS
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The proposals for a communication will be selected on the basis of a 1 page
abstract.
Abstracts will be sent by e-mail (preferably) or surface mail at:
pblpl.univ-aix.fr
Philippe Blache
LPL - Universit� de Provence
29, Avenue Robert Schuman
13621 Aix-en-Provence
France
DATES
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Deadline : December 1st, 1999
Notifications: December 20th, 1999
CHAIR
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Philippe Blache Eric de la Clergerie
CNRS/Universit� de Provence INRIA